This invention relates to a hypocaloric food composition containing lipids in which the lipids are at least partly replaced by a caloric moderator consisting of a polyol ester other than glycerol and fatty acid.
Nutrition in the developed countries is characterized by an excessive consumption of fats which represent the richest nutriments from the point of view of energy. This excessive consumption involves all manner of health risks, above all cardiovascular risks. In addition, certain anomalies of the lipid metabolism, such as hyperlipidemia, obesity, and diabetes, require not only therapeutic treatment, but also the application of diets which reduce the quantities of fats, particularly saturated fats, and cholesterol ingested.
However, the fats have other extremely important technical, i.e. non-nutritive, functions by virtue of their particular physical properties and contribute towards the texture and flavour of most foods. Well-established eating habits prohibit any reduction in their consumption despite the risks involved because the produce a feeling of fullness.
For this reason, attempts have been made to replace natural fats in foods by synthetic pseudo-fats which have their physicochemical and organoleptic characteristics, but are not metabolized by the organism. A preferred class of these compounds consists of polyol esters other than glycerol already present in natural foods. Pseudo-fats such as these are hydrolyzed only slightly, if at all, by the gastrointestinal hydrolases, so that they are split up and resorbed only slightly, if at all, and instead are eliminated with the faeces and, basically, do not present any toxicity problems. The sugar esters of fatty acids, for example, represent pseudo-fats of the type in question which are suitable for use in the hypocaloric food compositions described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,600,168. However, the sugar esters have the disadvantage of being relatively expensive because their synthesis is complicated. In addition, it has been found that they affect the intestinal transit to the extent of causing diarrhoea.